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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoBarbara J. Perenic | DISPATCHDr. Eric Adkins, medical director of the emergency department at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, hopes for better mental-health and addiction care. The report emphasized the needs in those areas.

Ohio could do a much better job of preventing life-threatening injuries and helping those with
behavioral health problems, including addiction, a national emergency-care analysis has found.

Overall, though, the state earned comparatively high marks (a C-plus, seventh-best in the
nation) in the American College of Emergency Physicians’ report, which is critical of the nation as
a whole.

“The role of emergency care is expanding, and this report card is saying the nation’s policies
are failing to support emergency patients,” said Dr. Alexander Rosenau, the group’s president.

The report looked at 136 measures from a variety of sources, including the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Areas of focus included
access to emergency care; quality and patient safety; medical liability; public health and injury
prevention; and disaster preparedness.

The nation received a D-plus. Washington, D.C., which was graded as a state, got top billing.
Wyoming was ranked at the bottom.

Five years ago, the college ranked Ohio 18th. The state does especially well in access to
emergency care, quality and patient safety, according to the report. An increase in emergency
physicians and other medical specialists and increased use of electronic medical records are among
the factors that benefit states in those categories.

However, Ohio does poorly in prevention, in part because there are no laws requiring motorcycle
helmets or banning hand-held cellphone use for all drivers. And the state has high rates of infant
mortality and smoking.

One of the greatest areas of struggle in Ohio is in behavioral medicine, experts say.

“We need to get more funded beds available both for behavioral health and for substance abuse,”
said Dr. Howard Mell, an emergency physician from northeastern Ohio who works at several hospitals
in the state.

And people with addictions and mental-health problems deserve better care on the front end so
that they don’t end up in a hospital in a crisis, said Dr. Eric Adkins, medical director of the
emergency department at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center.

“They need to find somebody from a behavioral-health standpoint to counsel them, to support
whatever needs they have,” Adkins said.

“Columbus is trying to get better, but we really need to kind of turn to our policymakers at the
local and regional level and state level.”

Behavioral-health resources have improved slightly in recent years, but there’s still far too
few for the demand, said Laura Moskow Sigal, executive director at Mental Health America of
Franklin County.

Medicaid expansion in Ohio is a bright spot, and it should lead to better regular care for more
people in the state and expansion of hospital services to coincide with a higher volume of patients
who are insured, she said.